Red Post Collection: URF over, Upcoming Party IP Weekend, Gifting Restriction Changes, and more

Posted on at 1:27 AM by Moobeat
Tonight's red post collection includes the end of URF, the announcement of a Party IP Weekend this weekend, a heads up on changes to Gifting restrictions, Hippalus noting the upcoming release of Mystery icons, Meddler with discussion on Bard, Mordekaiser, and Nasus, and more!
Continue reading for more information!



Table of Contents


URF sails off with Party IP in its wake

The 13th of April is here and, sadly, U.R.F has swam back to the featured game mode team's lab for now. As a thank you for enjoying all that is URF, a Party IP Weekend is coming up next weekend!
"It’s been an intense fortnight, and we’re still finding new ways to break--we mean expertly min-max--Bard’s insane cooldowns, not to mention the terrorcopter of a war horse that still managed to trample through our nightmares despite his hobbled heels. 
We’re grateful for everyone who participated in URF mode, from the oldest League vets to the newest players just getting started during these wild two weekends. As another thank you for playing along with our joke and cannon-balling back into the ultra-rapid waters, we’re hosting a Party IP Weekend from April 17th at 12:01 AM PDT to April 19th at 11:59 PM PDT. Team up with your friends and earn guaranteed bonus IP when you play matchmade games. The more friends you queue with, the more bonus IP you earn. Here’s the chart: 

But that does mean this is the end of URF for now; the manatee is swimming home to the Featured Game Mode team’s lab, and we’ll dive into all of the feedback you’ve given us over the last fourteen days. 
We know, we know. It’s too soon. It just came back. But the ultra-rapid awesomeness is best savored in small servings. The original run of URF taught us a fantastic lesson about the novelty of game modes over time and the cost of ongoing maintenance. Featured Gameplay Modes taper off in popularity sharply after a short period of time. 
Despite breaking our golden rule of not touching Featured Gameplay Modes post-launch, our on-the-run tweaks to keep URF treading water balance-wise the first time around still saw the same declining engagement and burnout. That doesn’t mean players don’t have a blast before they fade away. However, being designed as a can of whoop-ass in the first place ultimately means that the flame burns twice as bright and half as long. 
Thanks again for sharing this years’ April Fools event with us, and we’ll see you on the battlefield! 
-Riot Games"
Here are the regional versions of this announcement for the Party IP Weekend:


Twitch's R vs Nexus/Inhibitor Bug Fix in  5.8

Meddler has commented that a tentative bug fix should go out in 5.8 that allows Twitch to be able to hit inhibitors and the Nexus while Rat-Ta-Tat-Tat (R) is active.
"Thanks for the report, that bug should be fixed in the next patch (5.8), barring any unforeseen problems."
ZenonTheStoic added:
"CertainlyT fixed this. He told me about how he fixed it.\ 
CertainlyT is some kind of dark scripting wizard."
He continued, elaborating:
"Due to legacy code that would be surprisingly painful to fix (it's on our todo list, but we'd have to potentially test 600+ skills against it and wouldn't get too much of a gain from it) inhibitors and the nexus do not register missile hits--they just don't fire the TargetExecute block. So instead CertainlyT checks in a very small radius around the missile repeatedly to see if he can find an attackable inhibitor around it, and if so does damage to it, making sure to only damage it once. 
Yup. That level of dark wizard."

As of the 4/9 PBE update, this bug fix / change has been implemented on the PBE.

Relaxing Gifting Restrictions

Riot is easing up a bit on some of the gifting restrictions that are currently in place, including upping the amount of gifts that can be sent each date, lowering the level and friendship time requirements for sending and receiving, and more!
"You asked for looser restrictions on gifting so we’re relaxing them across the board. From now on, these changes will be in effect on all content and RP gifting.

Content Gifting (skins, champions, rune pages, icons, ward skins, Mystery)
  • To send a gift, you must be at least level 10 (was level 15)
  • To receive a gift, you must be at least level 1 (was level 5)
  • You can only send up to 10 gifts (was 5 gifts) each day
  • You can receive up to 10 gifts (was 5 gifts) each day
  • You can’t receive gifts if you’re banned or suspended
  • The player receiving a gift needs to have been on your buddy list for at least 1 day (was 2 weeks)
  • The player receiving a Mystery gift must have at least 10 eligible content options (doesn’t apply to icons and ward skins)

RP Gifting
  • To receive RP, you must be at least level 1 (was level 10)
  • To send RP, you must be at least level 15 (was level 20)
  • You can only send up to 5 RP gifts (was 3 RP gifts) every 24 hours
  • You can only receive up to 5 RP gifts (was 3 RP gifts) every 24 hours
  • You can’t receive RP if you’re banned or suspended
  • The player receiving RP needs to have been on your buddy list for at least 1 day (was 2 weeks)"

As for concern that the 1 day waiting period to send gifts to a friend is too low, Hippalus noted:
"Our Player Support team has gotten much better at detecting fraud and reversing purchases when necessary, even with gifting. So we no longer need a 2 week window to deter fraud. Subject to change of course!"

Mystery Icons coming soon

One hawk eyed redditor noticed that an option to purchase a Mystery Icon for 150 RP was temporarily added to the in-game shop earlier tonight. Now removed, the option unlocked the Astronaut Poro summoner icon for the user.

In the thread, Hippalus swooped in to confirm mystery icons and note:
"The store devs are working out some kinks with the feature. It will be live at some point this week."
As for which icons will be included, WizardCrab noted:
"When it goes live, we'll give you a full list."

A few other folks in the thread reported also seeing a Mystery Ward option temporarily up in the shop as well

Meddler's Thoughts on Nasus

When asked what the balance team's current opinions on Nasus are, Meddler shared:
"We're pretty happy with him overall. Does he scale into enormous amounts of damage? Yup. But he does so as an extremely immobile champion, who, even with an incredibly stacked Q can be kited by a team with at least a bit of crowd control. That creates a bunch of interesting play around shutting him down, versus, as Nasus/his allies, trying to find ways to get him face time on a target. It also means that, unlike some other immobile fighters, he's got a clear purpose late game. If you can get him onto a tower, or a squishy target, it'll pay dividends, so is well worth coordinating around.

Possible we might tweak a couple of things at some point (ranges or passive amount for example), no immediate plans to do so. It's also worth noting the current meta should be pretty favorable to Nasus (longer fights, some other top laners that also want to farm a lot) which probably gives him a bit of a boost right now."
As for Nasus laning becoming a bit passive, Meddler noted:
"Agreed, his laning can be a bit passive at times. I don't think it's inherently a problem if the onus to be aggressive is consistently on one champion (not Nasus in this case). Where I think we do see issues is where aggressive action's just not rewarding, in large part because of the Lifesteal from his passive. Could see an argument for nerfing that (and potentially shifting the power elsewhere if appropriate) if we conclude at some point he needs a clearer early weakness. It does currently allow him to function in a range of lanes he'd otherwise really struggle in however, so not personally seeing a need to change it right now."
Regarding Q on towers, he continued:
"I do feel it's fair that Siphoning Strike affects tower, whilst Rengar Q and Sejuani W don't. Building destruction is one of Nasus' core strengths, in part so that he's always at least a moderate threat even if your team can stay away from him forever. It's something he needs to function. Rengar by contrast's there to kill a dude a bunch (and then either get out or kill more dudes), bringing mobility and stronger (over a short duration) lockdown. Sejuani's got a lot of CC, most of it AOE and she's there to lock down and control team fights. Neither of them needs to be strong at destroying structures to be useful members of a team."

Mordekaiser W Cast Time removed for Ally Cast

In a thread requesting that Mordekaiser's Creeping Death (W) have the cast time removed when cast on allies, Meddler noted:
"We're on a similar same page - Creeping Death's being changed to be instant cast on allies as well, not just on Morde himself."
He continued:
"I'd expect we'd need to cut significant power from those champions somewhere if making those effects self+ally, Kayle's ult especially. In Morde's case we felt it was the appropriate call, given we wanted to add some power to him and he offered no team utility at all outside of his ghost. Those three are in reasonable (or reasonable ish at least) spots balance wise by contrast and bring significant utility already."

This change is currently on the PBE for testing.

Bard's Chimes XP

Meddler also chimed in on the XP rewards for Bard's chimes:
"Yeah, the XP rewards for Chimes could potentially stand to be higher. We're planning on testing Chimes giving more XP based off game time this week, along with a couple of other small Bard buffs (an adjustment so Chimes don't spawn deep in the enemy jungle in the first 5 minutes and a slight increases to the speed/range of Q). We're keeping buff testing light on him for a little bit since we're still assessing the impact of the 5.7 changes. He's definitely in a significantly better spot, and probably still has some untapped performance, but's probably still on the weak side too."

Next Champion When?!?

In a thread inquiring as to when the next champion will be released, Meddler teased:
"We've got 6 champs in the pipeline at the moment. Those range from pretty close to complete (next champion due out) to just started and nothing but some initial ideas about possible directions on paper."
He continued:
"It's very likely that, as per last year, there'll be some variance in the time between champion releases, with some shorter gaps between champions too."

Xerath R Bug in 5.7 

Pwyff also tweeted out on a 5.7 bug with Xerath's R that they are currently working on:
"XERATH: There's a known bug if you double-tap R too fast he'll blop himself with his first shot. Workaround: tap R a lil' slower please!"
He continued:
"Looking into a fix, but if it does get found it'll be a fix that needs to piggyback something bigger (deploys cause a lot of stress, hey)."

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